Memorial for Edgar Brokaw Jr., UCLA Film Professor, to Be Held on Campus

The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television will hold a memorial service at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 23, in Sound Stage 2, Melnitz Hall, honoring the life of Edgar Brokaw Jr., professor emeritus of film, New York studio head and pioneer in film production curriculum. Brokaw, 85, died Dec. 9 in Santa Monica of a long illness.

To attend the service, members of the public should R.S.V.P. to Prudence Macgowan Faxon at (310) 474-1072

Throughout his professional and university career, Brokaw was known for his technical expertise in filmmaking, devotion to teaching and advocacy of students’ rights.

His students at UCLA included Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek of the Doors, documentary filmmaker Joan Churchill and Filmex founder Gary Essert, as well as filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola, Gregory Nava, Michael Miner, Alex Cox, Alexander Payne and many others in the entertainment industry.

“Ed’s basic ideas and philosophy of teaching were aimed at getting the individual to be free of imposed authoritative criteria, to work honestly from his or her own creative self, and to be a hands-on master of the craft,” said Will Adams, professor emeritus of film at UCLA and colleague of Brokaw. “We miss his intellectual radicalism, his creative stimulus, his encyclopedic knowledge, his engaging self, and his wonderful contempt for bureaucracy.”

Brokaw was born in New York City on July 14, 1917. His early interests in photography and filmmaking were interrupted by military service during World War II in India, Burma (now Myanmar) and China. He was honorably discharged in 1945 as a decorated lieutenant in the Army Signal Corps. He married Beatrice Branscombe Tenney of New York City in 1947. Tragically, she died after a long illness in 1954.

After the war, he attended UCLA on the GI Bill, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1952. He stayed on in the theater arts department as a lecturer before moving to New York City in 1954 to become a producer/director with Seminar Films Inc. He left that company in the spring of 1957 to establish New York Studios Inc. He served as head of the studio, making more than 71 shorts, documentaries and commercials. He returned to UCLA in 1961 to resume his teaching career. He retired in 1988 at the age of 71.

During his years in New York, Brokaw was producer or director of more than 30 corporate videos for such companies as Chase Manhattan Bank, Maxwell House, Heinz, Philco, AT&T, the YMCA, Chrysler and General Foods. He also made numerous training films, commercials and short musical films such as “Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” “I’ll Bring You a Rainbow” starring Tony Bennett and “Greenfields” starring the Brothers Four. He was the director of photography for 65 five-minute segments of the popular children’s television program “Kukla, Fran and Ollie.” He was the director of photography for several features including “Dante’s Inferno.”

In his later years Brokaw collected rare books and pursued his interests in film and philosophy. A common theme in his memoirs was his belief that film is poetry.

He traveled extensively in Europe and served as a guest lecturer at the British Film School in London.

He was preceded in death by his older sister, Marian Brokaw Benmore, and his niece, Soleil Benmore, both in the year 2000. He is survived by a nephew, William C. Benmore, and a great-niece, Lisa M. Benmore.

Keywords

"alexander payne" "francis ford coppola" 

Share This

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Delicious

Permalink